Unite the Rings of Power

No, this is not Lord of the Rings!

You set off following Varan’s Lode Stone. Soon you realize that you are being shadowed. You stop and come face to face with a Verbeeg hunter. He challenges you to escape his hunting party. They give you a running start. You manage to escape them. The chase has led you to a glade where two women are quarrelling.

Lacief tries to intercede, but the wood nymph attacks and the other woman transforms into a hag. You fight the two of them. When the hag is bloodied, she summons her Fey Spitter Spider guardians.

Clive suggests that the hag might know the location of the Rod of Frozen time.

Somehow you manage to make peace with the hag. She is a pact hag. She offers to make a pact with you. She will provide you with the location of the Rod of Frozen Time if you retrieve her sister’s ritual book, which was stolen by Yababa the bog hag. She warns you of Yababa’a crocodile.

You agree to retrieve the ritual book for her. Each hag has warded their realm against the other, so Bogumel cannot retrieve it herself. She give you a map to a bog about two days journey away.

As you chase the elf (or whatever it is) through the woods you come upon a camp in a clearing. Suddenly you are lured into the camp by floating white lights, which you quickly discover are Will-o-wisps. Your sounds bring spriggans rushing from their tents and they attack you. One of the spriggans grabs Clive, who has fallen under the spell of the Will-o-wisps.

With some quick manoeuvrings you bring down the spriggans and Will-o-wisps and rescue Clive.

During the fight, an Autumn nymph exchanges secrets with Varan. In return for learning that Varan has recently visited Bahamut on Celesia and that the party are in the Feywild seeking one of the rings of power, she tells Varan the following information:

“The Prince of Frost can be imprisoned by the Rod of Frozen Time.”

And:

“You can reach the “Fortress of Frozen Tears” by finding the “Everwinter Portal” in the foothills of the Mountains of Frost."

After a short rest, Varan uses his Lodestone of the Planes to find the distance and direction to the portal. You conjure your horses and start heading North West.

When you get back to your rooms at Panhorn’s Inn, Clive warns you that it will mean disaster for your quest to reach the Prince of Frost if the Eladrin find out that is where you are going. Archfey are like demi-gods, and the Prince of Frost is a very mean spirited entity.

When you rise in the morning, the Eladrin knights, led by Singollo, the Captain of the Guards, is there to meet you. You tell him your cover story that you are pursuing a Tiefling that you suspect has gone to the Fortress of Frozen Tears, the palace of the Prince of Frost.

Singollo is horrified and believes that you have been misled. He is certain that the Prince of Frost would not be involved in any way with the Tieflings from the Natural World. Any such suggestion or rumor of such could bring ruin on Taur-nu-Fuin. Singollo implores you to return to your own realm and re-examine your evidence. He tells you that it would be impossible for what you suggest to be true.

You convince him that you will return to the Natural World through the portal by which your came.

Lorindol allows you to leave the city. Lindorie waves to Varan and tells him that she will never forget him. Perhaps it is for her that you are being spared and allowed to leave.

As you leave the city and head back south to convince the Eladrin that you are indeed returning home, Duor spots a spy, probably an elf, following at a distance, matching your pace. You chase him into the woods, but lose him at a clearing where you discover two tents.

Lord Lorindol, Lady Elendrae, and their daughter Lindorie host you at a banquet in your honour for the services that you provided to the city. Your challenge was to meet the social expectations of the Eladrin nobles and not give away the real reason that you are in the realms of the Prince of Frost. During the conversation, you are pressed for how you came to be at Taur-nu-Fuin and you convince your hosts that you are pursuing kidnappers who have taken a noble lady from your town and a priestess of Sahannine.

During the meal, Phaneroy, the Pixie Warlock, and MAdrae, the Eladrin Twilight Encanter enter the banquet hall, but they do not spot you.

At the end of the evening, Lorindol pledges to send some of his knights to aid you in your quest.

You arrive at the Eladrin city of Taur-nu-Fuin just as the guards are closing the gate for the night. You convince the guards to let you in. They direct you to the Gnomish section to find a hostel.

You find a hostel that has some space. You take two rooms and then come down for dinner. During dinner Duor notices that the floor appears to be vibrating as if something very large is coming towards the city.

Soon it is discovered that the city is under attack. Fireballs come over the walls, smashing buildings and setting them on fire. You hear a woman screaming that her daughter is trapped in a nearby building. Duor and Varan enter the burning building and rescue the girl. Unthawed heals her.

You begin to escort the woman, who turns out to the be wife of the mayor of the city, and her daughter to the siege command centre when another fireball lands nearby knocking the woman out.

You manage to find the command centre. Mayor Lorindol is grateful for your help and promises you a reward. You convince him that you want to help with the battle, so he gives you a token of passage and sends you with a page to the guard tower.

At the guard tower, you are allowed up to the battlements where Lacief and Unthawed disable two of the catapults and Varan kills the orc that was driving the battering ram team causing the goblin slaves to scatter into the night. Caty finishes the battle with a devastating warlock attack!

You follow the unicorn for the better part of the day. She leads you along hidden paths and routes that you would not have known to take. Clive is amazed that you have not encountered any hags or other dangers of the Feywild.

Late in the day you notice a small, ruined temple on a nearby hilltop. The unicorn appears to be making straight for it. When you arrive, you find a partially crumbled temple with a tree growing in the middle of it. The unicorn begins to drink deeply from a silver pedestal that seems to contain water. No matter how much water the unicorn drinks, the level in the pedestal does not change.

When Duor approaches the pedestal, the unicorn pushes him away with her head and makes a gentle warning noise. After a minute or so of drinking, the unicorn begins to browse the long grass that surrounds the temple.

Duor again approaches the pedestal and ties to touch the water. This time, an Eladrin appears in the temple and tells him to stop. She calls guards to restrain Duor. Very quickly the situation worsens as the Eladrin, who calls herself Madrae, the Twilight Incanter, accuses the party of being Fomorian agents.

Soon the party are in a battle with the Incanter, her two Spriggan Withering Touch guards, and a shambling mound (which was what the tree in the temple turned out to be).

After the two spriggans are killed, Varan uses his diplomacy to settle the situation and convince Madrae that the whole incident is a misunderstanding. She agrees to let you go, but swears vengeance if she learns that you have lied.

She warns you off the temple grounds and suggests that you make for Taur-nu-Fuin, a nearby Eladrin City before nightfall. The unicorn appears to know the way and walks off, leading you into the woods.

Clive leads you to a glad where a Unicorn guards a pool. As you try to win over the Unicorn, you are attacked by pixies, including a very nasty pixie warlock named Phanroy. Whenever you fight back, the Unicorn disapproves and walks away from you. Once you finally convince the Unicorn to go with you and move it out of view of the pixies, you fight them off and drive them away. Phanroy swears his revenge.

The Unicorn leads you away giving you safe passage through this part of the world.

Working your way north, you come across a road ahead. Before you can reach it you are attacked by a band of gnomes with two spriggan giantsouls that are spoiling for a fight. They mean to rob you but soon discover that they are no match for you.

After watching you dispatch his friends, the gnome entropist named Shaumon surrenders to you. After squeezing him for information, he reveals that he works for a creature named Drexel, the leader of his village of bandits in the Caverns of Gore. He won’t take you there.

Clive says it is a waste of time to go there and recommends letting Shaumon go and just pressing on.

When you teleport from Senaliesse, you arrive on the border between the realm of the Summer Queen and the realm of the Prince of Frost.

You discover a battle between blue clad and green clad pixies. Unthawed crashes through the bushes and scares off the blue clad pixies. There are many dead pixies of both colours strewn about. You find one who was being tortured for information. After reviving him, you learn that his name is Clive and that he works for Tiandra as part of the border patrol. The blue pixies had crossed the border in search of the Seal of Frost, a device that they use to contact the Prince of Frost. Clive is certain that the seal was stolen by Xivorts.

Once Clive learns of your quest, he offers to accompany you and help you avoid trouble as much as possible and to help you find your way to the palace of the Prince of Frost. He suggests finding a unicorn to guide you as far as it is willing, because they are particularly good at avoiding the worst areas.

You arrive on a teleportation portal in Senaliesse, the city of Tiandra, the Summer Queen (one of the mightiest Archfey and wife of Cirdan).

Cirdan and Olowe greet you, but it is obvious that Tiandra is the one in charge here.

She tells you that the Prince of Frost, an Archfey in an adjacent territory, has the human ring and is using it as part of his plot to freeze the Natural World into a permanent winter.

Treaties among the Archfey prevent any actions or incursions on Tiandra’s part. It will be up to you to penetrate his territory. She warns you not to reveal that you are coming from her territory. She also warns you that the Feywild is far more dangerous than the Natural World and that creatures and things that are benign in the Natural World might not be here in the Feywild.

She invites you to spend time rejuvenating in her city and to shop for items that you might not be able to pick up elsewhere. She says that when you are ready, she will teleport you to the borders of her territory.